Adjective "ersatz" definition and examples

Pronunciation

Definitions and examples

adjective

(of a product) made or used as a substitute, typically an inferior one, for something else.

'An egregious example of this tendency is the architect whose assembly-line production of faux rococo and ersatz neo-classical facades has transmogrified Mumbai's cityscape.'

'If redwood is not an option where you live, use similarly rot-resistant eastern or western red cedar, inexpensive hemlock, or consider the ersatz wood planks made of recycled plastic.'

'By contrast, there is very little in contemporary metropolitan architecture that rises above the kitsch and the ersatz in its efforts to provide a simulacrum of displaced nature.'

'As the delegates on the floor allowed themselves to be whipped up into fake passion, like that ersatz cream they used to sell during the war, I popped into the overspill where delegates were watching on the giant screen.'

'See they never had any coffee in Europe, it was what they call ersatz coffee, and this was made out of kind of charred acorns and they'd grind it up and that was their so-called coffee.'

'The one upside to the fact that we no longer have any real leaders, only ersatz ones slavishly addicted to following public opinion, is that at the end of the day, public outrage really matters.'

'Godard was lost in Plato's cave from the outset, so he should not be surprised when this illusory ersatz world of film proves unsatisfactory - as a replacement for life, it is indeed a very unsatisfactory substitute.'

'His voice shaking with ersatz emotion, he recalled how three senior boys surrounded him in such an intimidating manner that he has never forgotten it.'